Turkey

The following are pictures from Ira and my trip to Turkey. Ira did most of the photography. One thing we didn't represent in them was the tasty food. Amazing tomatoes! And more. Once we were eating again, after some stomach problems, it was great. If you want to see the pictures in order, start at the last post and move up to this one, the newest. Also, click on the picture if you want a bigger view.

Last stop, Olympos

Olympos has kind of a backpacker camp, we stayed in a little cabin room. There was a rocky beach, with ruins all behind it.

At night we hiked up to the Chimaera, where gas comes out of the earth and lights on fire. Kind of like lighting farts...but constant. There are a bunch of them.

Kaş

Kaş is a beautiful town on the Mediterranean, where we went kayaking over the 'sunken city' of Kekova, ancient ruins that have sunk into the sea as a result of earthquakes. You can see rubble under the beautiful clear water, and ruins on the shore of the island.

In the rocky cliffs above town there are Lycian tombs carved into the rock.

I love swimming in the Mediterranean! It's the perfect temperature. We went to one great sandy beach, at Patara, where it's shallow so easy to swim out past the breaking waves and body surf on them, or bob around behind them. Here I am off a rocky beach, a hotel/restaurant had beds & umbrellas to lie on and a ladder down to the water. This is my fourth time in the water that day, wonderful!

The Ephesus museum

All of the great sculptures from Ephesus were at the museum. Some of it is incredibly well preserved.

Ephesus

Moe's sarcophagus

Taxi's of Ephesus

Ephesus

Fake sculptor (not a hard job). They had a hilariously cheesy little 5-minute show for the tourists, hosted by some cruises that were there at the time.

Gladiators!

Guys playing fake trumpets to recorded music. They were giggling at the performance.

More Ephesus

Ancient toilets

Ephesus, ancient city of Anatolia (1)

You can do some shopping before sightseeing, including for genuine fake watches!



It was packed with tourists, lots of tour groups.

So packed that it's hard to get a picture without some random girl in it :-)

Selçuk

From the top, 6th century Basilica of St. John, citadel of the Seljuk Turks, and a stork. There are stork nests on top of old ruins of Byzantine aqueducts.

Troy

Troy was neat, though not spectacular to look at. You can climb up into the Trojan horse. I was still exhausted from being sick and barely eating, so we took it slow.

Castle

After doing lots of sightseeing around Istanbul, we took the ferry that goes all the way down the Bosphorus, stopping in a little town at the end for a few hours so we could have lunch. There were lots of nice views.
The next day we both were very ill, so we were stuck in bed for two days, not eating anything. Fortunately there was running water again in the hostel by that time, the two days prior there was no running water anywhere in the old part of the city due to pipe work. Not fun when you are spending all day out in 90 degree weather. So, we went to the Grand Bazaar on our last day but didn't have much energy to buy stuff or take pictures there.
A big thanks to our Turkish friends Teresa and Hursu, who took us to dinner on our last night, and then translated at the pharmacy so we could get the right medicine! We were very grateful.

Aya Sofya (Istanbul)

Built around 530 AD, this was a Byzantine church, then was converted to a mosque by the Ottomans, and to a museum by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Republic of Turkey.

Istanbul - The Basilica Cistern

The Basilica Cistern. The bottom picture is an ad for 'Miniaturk,' a theme park that consists of small models of all the historical landmarks in Turkey. Unfortunately we didn't make it to Miniaturk.

The Blue Mosque

The Blue Mosque (Sultanahmet Camii) built between 1609-1616. It is beautiful inside, but the weird low lights kind of distract from the tiles and everything.

Galata Tower, and views from the top

At the top there is a restaurant and 'nightclup,' according to the brochure, with a traditional dance performance. We just went up & took pictures, no nightclupping for us.

Topkapı Palace

Windows and tiles in a courtyard